DOOXDOO Review—Color Everywhere

DOOXDOO is a puzzle game that is truly unique. Well, the truth is it is a match-3 game at its core. Surprisingly, I am very fond of this specific genre, so believe me when I say whether this game is worth the price or not, because I’m an expert. This stands true for all of my other reviews, too!

Joking aside, DOOXDOO is one of the few PS Mobile titles with “full game”-like graphics. The visual effects and assets are among the most polished you could ever see in a Vita game, and that includes retail games, not just PS Mobile games and download-only titles. DOOXDOO seems to have released first as a PlayStation Mobile game before getting ported to Android. I am not sure on this, but it feels and looks like DOOXDOO was designed for the Vita first before anything else.

The reason I think that this game was designed for the Vita is it doesn’t have the problems of most of the PS Mobile games I’ve recently reviewed. Graphics, game content, controls seem to be functioning as they should. Or, let’s just give Eicus Software the credit of releasing a fully realized game.

DOOXDOO is a match-3 game that involves a bee colony-like layout. You try to match at least three crystals of the same color in order to score points. There is a timer on top of the screen that goes down as time goes by, but it refills in amounts depending on the chain you’ve attained. Below the timer is the current level you are in, and below that is the next color to chain. In the middle of the crystal field is a button with a hand etched on it. It changes colors depending on the color you should chain for that round. You don’t blindly chain crystals, and the game makes sure you don’t chain them in advance; moving a crystal will effectively lock the crystal it swapped places with, and it also loses its color. It’s unlocked in the next round but remains colorless. The next round after that, it will have a new color unless you’ve swapped places with it again, once more locking it up and rendering it colorless.

There are three difficulties: Beginner, Average, and Expert. You can only unlock the Average difficulty by climbing up to Level 20 in the Beginner. For the Expert, Level 20 of the Average difficulty should be attained at minimum. The differences among the difficulty settings are partly the number of colors: Beginner has four, Average has five, and Expert has five but with larger cell locks. You can reset the field with the reset button at the bottom, just below the “Extra Time” (fills a small amount of time in the time bar) or “Full Time” (fills the entire time bar) bonuses. The reset button is activated with time, while the time bonuses are activated by amounts of chains, though how many I don’t know for sure.

DOOXDOO is a great pick-up-and-play game, but don’t be surprised to realize you’ve been playing the game for longer than you thought you’d be. The simplicity and the effectiveness of the core game mechanics are wonderful, as they put you in a zen state. Not the Tetris-like “zenality,” but it does grab your attention, and you’ll be thinking of nothing else. The lack of game modes, though, is a bummer. If DOOXDOO had been released back in the arcade days, it would have been a hit even without extra modes. Times have changed, however, and we need more! But for $2.79 (when the game was purchased for review), it is cheap for what it offers.